nep-dem New Economics Papers
on Demographic Economics
Issue of 2019‒02‒11
seven papers chosen by
Héctor Pifarré i Arolas
Universitat Pompeu Fabra

  1. Fertility and Parental Labor-Force Participation: New Evidence from a Developing Country in the Balkans By Iva Trako
  2. Immigration and Public Finances in OECD Countries By Hippolyte D'Albis; Ekrame Boubtane; Dramane Coulibaly
  3. Fertility Trends in the United States, 1980-2017: The Role of Unintended Births By Kasey Buckles; Melanie E. Guldi; Lucie Schmidt
  4. Childlessness and Economic Development: A Survey By Thomas Baudin; David de la Croix; Paula E. Gobbi
  5. Universal Childcare for the Youngest and the Maternal Labour Supply By Kunze, Astrid; Liu, Xingfei
  6. Spatial Inequality in Mortality in France over the Past Two Centuries By Florian Bonnet; Hippolyte D'Albis
  7. School spending and extension of the youth voting franchise: Evidence from an experiment in Norway By Ole Henning Nyhus; Bjarne Strøm

  1. By: Iva Trako (PSE - Paris School of Economics, PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris - INRA - Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)
    Abstract: This paper examines the effect of fertility on parental labor-force participation in a developing country in the Balkans, with particular attention to the intervening role of childcare provided by grandparents in extended families. In order to address the potential endogeneity in the fertility decision, I exploit Albanian parental preference for having sons combined with the siblings sex-composition instrument as an exogenous source of variation. Using a repeated cross-section of parents with at least two children, I find a positive and statistically significant effect of fertility on parental labor supply for those parents who are more likely to be younger, less educated or live in extended families. In particular, IV estimates for mothers show that they increase labor supply, especially in terms of hours worked per week and the likelihood of working off-farm. Similarly, father's likelihood of working off-farm and having a second occupation increase as a consequence of further childbearing. The heterogeneity analysis suggests that this positive effect might be the result of two plausible mechanisms: childcare provided by non-parental adults in extended families and greater financial costs of maintaining more children.
    Keywords: fertility,parental labor-force participation,instrumental variables
    Date: 2018–07–03
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-01828471&r=all
  2. By: Hippolyte D'Albis (PSE - Paris School of Economics, PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris - INRA - Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Ekrame Boubtane (CERDI - Centre d'Études et de Recherches sur le Développement International - UdA - Université d'Auvergne - Clermont-Ferrand I - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, PSE - Paris School of Economics, PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris - INRA - Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Dramane Coulibaly (EconomiX - UPN - Université Paris Nanterre - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)
    Abstract: This paper shows that the macroeconomic and fiscal consequences of international migration are positive for OECD countries, and suggests that international migration produces a demographic dividend by increasing the share of the work- force within the population. The estimation of a structural vector autoregressive model on a panel of 19 OECD countries over the period 1980-2015 reveals that a migration shock increases GDP per capita through a positive effect on both the ratio of working-age to total population and the employment rate. International migration also improves the fiscal balance by reducing the per capita transfers paid by the government and per capita old-age public spending. To rationalize these findings, an original theoretical framework is developed. This framework highlights the roles of both the demographic structure and intergenerational public transfers and shows that migration is beneficial to host economies characterized by aging populations and large public sectors.
    Keywords: Immigration,public finances,overlapping-generation model,panel VAR
    Date: 2018–12–14
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-01955539&r=all
  3. By: Kasey Buckles; Melanie E. Guldi; Lucie Schmidt
    Abstract: After roughly 10 years of decline, the U.S. fertility rate reached a historic low in 2017. However, aggregate trends in fertility mask substantial heterogeneity across different demographic groups. Young women and unmarried women have seen the largest declines in fertility in recent years while women older than 30 and married women have actually experienced increases. In this paper, we explore the role of changes in unintended births in explaining fertility patterns in the U.S. from 1980 to 2017, with an emphasis on the fertility decline of the last decade. We begin by documenting heterogeneity in fertility trends across demographic groups, using data from the National Center for Health Statistics’ Natality Detail Files. We then use data from the National Survey of Family Growth to describe trends in unintended births and to estimate a model that will identify the maternal characteristics that most strongly predict them. Finally, we use this model to predict the proportion of births in the Natality Detail Files that are unintended. We find that 35% of the decline in fertility between 2007 and 2016 can be explained by declines in births that were likely unintended, and that this is driven by drops in births to young women.
    JEL: I1 J10 J11 J13
    Date: 2019–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:25521&r=all
  4. By: Thomas Baudin (IÉSEG School of Management); David de la Croix (UNIVERSITE CATHOLIQUE DE LOUVAIN, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES)); Paula E. Gobbi (ECARES, Université libre de Bruxelles & CEPR, London)
    Abstract: This paper provides an introduction to the analysis of childlessness, first by describing the stylized facts and the relevant literature, and then by proposing a theoretical framework. We show that both poverty-driven childlessness and opportunity-driven childlessness matter and are essential to a thorough understanding of childlessness as a socioeconomic phenomenon.
    Keywords: Childlessness, fertility, education, marriage, children, sterility, economic development, poverty-driven childlessness, opportunity-driven childlessness, female empowerment, childcare, Malthusian economy, educational homogamy, reproductive health, demographic economics, developed countries, developing countries, historical childlessness, quantity and quality of children, inequality
    JEL: J11 O11 O40
    Date: 2019–01–03
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ctl:louvir:2019001&r=all
  5. By: Kunze, Astrid (Norwegian School of Economics); Liu, Xingfei (University of Alberta, Department of Economics)
    Abstract: This paper explores whether the expansion of childcare leads to an increase in the maternal labour supply. Exploiting a large nationwide reform that expanded childcare for 1–2-year-olds to 80 percent coverage, we find a significant increase in employment of mothers with young children, but only weak evidence of an increase in contracted hours of work. The adjustments are short-term effects of the reform. We also find substantial heterogeneity. The effects are relatively large for mothers post maternity leave, noteworthy on actual working hours. For mothers with more than one child, effects are strong in the long-term of the reform.
    Keywords: childcare; female labour supply; contracted hours; actual hours; causal effects
    JEL: J08 J13 J22
    Date: 2019–02–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:albaec:2019_001&r=all
  6. By: Florian Bonnet (UP1 UFR02 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - UFR d'Économie - UP1 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne, PSE - Paris School of Economics); Hippolyte D'Albis (PSE - Paris School of Economics, PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris - INRA - Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)
    Abstract: This article analyzes the evolution of spatial inequalities in mortality across 90 French territorial units since 1806. Using a new database, we identify a period from 1881 to 1980 when inequalities rapidly shrank while life expectancy rose. This century of convergence across territories was mainly due to the fall in infant mortality. Since 1980, spatial inequalities have levelled out or occasionally widened, due mainly to differences in life expectancy among the elderly. The geography of mortality also changed radically during the century of convergence. Whereas in the 19th century high mortality occurred mainly in larger cities and along a line from North-west to South-east France, it is now concentrated in the North, and Paris and Lyon currently enjoy an urban advantage.
    Date: 2018–11
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-01945918&r=all
  7. By: Ole Henning Nyhus (Department of Economics, Norwegian University of Science and Technology); Bjarne Strøm (Department of Economics, Norwegian University of Science and Technology)
    Abstract: Changes in population age composition is challenging in modern welfare states. Intergenerational conflicts may have important consequences for provision of services directed towards specific age groups as schooling and care for elderly. A relevant question is to what extent the supply side responds to changes in the age composition of the electorate in terms of actual spending policies. This paper exploits a novel experiment that took place in Norway in the 2011 local elections to estimate the causal relationship between local government school spending and the age composition of the electorate. We exploit that the voting age was reduced from 18 to 16 years in local elections in selected local governments (experimental governments), while voting age was kept at 18 in the rest (control governments). Using a difference in differences strategy, we find that compulsory school spending decreased by approximately 2% in the experimental governments. The results are robust across a number of econometric specifications and robustness checks. Since all the newly enfranchised voters had just finished compulsory school and receive no direct benefits from local government school spending, the result is consistent with selfish voter behavior.
    Keywords: Youth voting franchise; Compulsory school spending; Local governments
    JEL: D72 H10 H70
    Date: 2019–01–12
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nst:samfok:17719&r=all

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